Various thermal management systems are available for heat generating devices, such as computer systems and electronics. A simple thermal management system includes a heat sink and a cooling fan. The heat sink is positioned in contact with the electronic components generating heat to transfer this heat into the surrounding air. A cooling fan may be positioned to blow air across the heat sink to dissipate heat into the surrounding environment.
While cooling fans can often be effectively implemented in stand-alone devices, large data centers often locate many heat-generating devices in closely packed arrangements. In such environments, “heat shadowing” remains an issue. Heat shadowing is caused by carryover heat from adjacent or “upstream” devices. For example, a fan that blows heat away from one device may transport that heat across other devices, negatively impacting the operation of those devices.
In addition, fans alone may not provide sufficient cooling for the high power dissipation of devices in large data centers, and fan noise and power consumption are problematic. It is noted that temperature rises if heat is not removed as fast as the heat is produced. Most of the electrical power supplied to computing devices is turned to heat during their operation.
Air conditioning systems, such as chillers, often consume large amounts of electrical power to operate. The inefficiencies of the air conditioning systems reduce overall efficiency of the data center.